The US utility application mentioned above includes a primary handset 10 shown in FIG. 1A and an auxiliary handset 18 shown detached from the primary handset in FIG. 1B. The primary and auxiliary handsets are shown joined to one another in FIG. 1A.
Within the primary handset is situated an array of laser diodes which produce laser light as well as heat when fired. The primary handset is also tethered to a console or cabinet which, among other things, includes a cooling system to cool the laser diodes. The auxiliary handset can be attached to the primary handset and harnesses the laser diodes to concentrate and direct laser light to tip windows such as those shown as 17 in FIG. 1B. The tip or tips 17, when impinged upon by laser light from the laser diodes, will also heat up. Since the tips 17 are meant to be placed on the human skin tissue, cooling the tip is desirable to lessen the buildup of heat on the tip and the skin tissue.
The cooling system provided is described in the US utility application and is generally of the type that uses a circulating cooling fluid with appropriate heat exchanger(s) to remove heat from the system. In general, the cooling system, shown in FIGS. 2A, 2B and 2C, includes a primary loop and an auxiliary cooling loop, the first such loop lying in the primary handset and the auxiliary loop lying in the auxiliary handset. FIG. 2B shows the auxiliary handset and the primary handset detached from one another. In this setup, the cooling fluid will be restricted to flowing through pump 34 only within the primary loop. However, when the auxiliary handset is joined with the primary handset, the cooling capacity of the primary loop is used to cool the cooling circuit in the auxiliary loop. The point of joinder of both loops is through heat exchanger 42 which dissipates the heat buildup in the tip 17 of the auxiliary handset.
Turning back to FIG. 1B, the points at which the cooling systems are joined are shown as 15a and 15b. Those points are closable/openable conduits through which cooling fluid will flow (or not flow) into the auxiliary handset cooling system, again as described in detail in the US utility application.
The cooling system described in the US utility application provides a clever mechanism by which cooling fluids are diverted into the auxiliary handset. However, a simpler system with fewer parts is desirable and this is the focus of the present invention.